PLA warships enter waters close to Diaoyutais

The Chinese destroyer Harbin is one of the seven ships that drew close to the islands on Tuesday. (Photo/Xinhua)

Seven PLA naval vessels entered waters around the disputed Diaoyutai (Diaoyu or Senkaku) islands in the East China Sea on Oct. 16 for the first time since three of the islands were nationalized by the Japanese government on Sept. 11.
The ships included two destroyers, two frigates, two frigates, two submarine rescue ships and a refueling tanker. They were detected by a Japanese surviliance aircraft between the Okinawa islands of Yonaguni and Iriomoto on Tuesday morning. The ships are from the PLA's North and East Sea fleets.
Japan's defense minister, Satoshi Morimoto, said the Japan Maritime Defense Force is paying close attention to the movements of the Chinese fleet in its territorial waters.

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China-Japan Tensions Concern South Korea

SEOUL—South Korea's economy won't benefit from a prolonged breakdown in relations between Japan and China because it would damage increasingly interlinked trade in the region, Seoul's trade minister said.
A simmering diplomatic feud between Beijing and Tokyo heated up on Wednesday when top Chinese financial officials canceled plans to attend meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Japan. The dispute, over contested islands, has also hurt sales of Japanese cars in China.
South Korea's auto makers have in turn benefited from a jump in sales in China, but Trade Minister Bark Tae-ho said Seoul was not "sitting there and feeling happy."

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The Asian Cold War

The roiling dispute over a remote set of rocks in the East China Sea, known to the Japanese as the Senkaku Islands and to the Chinese as the Diaoyus, is more than a mere diplomatic spat between two of the world's largest economies. It has stripped away the thin veneer of cooperation between the two Asian giants that most observers assumed would ripen as the two countries became increasingly economically intertwined. It also serves as yet another reminder of just how potent territorial disputes remain in Asia and how little trust there is between countries where the wounds of previous conflicts are still fresh. Although the probability of actual conflict between China and Japan over the Senkakus is negligible, the current crisis is the herald of a new cold war that will persist for years, if not decades. The result will be an Asia that remains fragmented, unable to overcome the baggage of the past, and one in which the specter of accidental conflict is ever present.

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No Sign of Progress in Japan-China Island Dispute

A group of disputed islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China is seen from the city government of Tokyo's survey vessel in the East China Sea, September 2, 2012.

 A bitter territorial dispute between China and Japan showed no signs of improvement Tuesday, as foreign ministers from both countries held high-level talks to ease tensions.

The official Xinhua news agency says Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi "reiterated China's position" on the disputed East China Sea islands during the talks, which were held on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

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South China Sea Burning Again

Growing tension between China and Japan fuels concerns over potential war 

China’s incoming leader re-emerged this weekend after an unexplained two-week absence, just in time to see the country he’s about to inherit consumed with rabid anti-Japanese nationalism that his Communist Party unleashed, and which the United States warned on Sunday could lead to a regional war.
Beijing’s rapidly deteriorating relationship with Tokyo will top the agenda as Xi Jinping takes over as general secretary of the Communist Party from President Hu Jintao, a promotion expected as early as next month. While Mr. Xi will continue to share power with Mr. Hu for months afterward, the stakes could scarcely be higher for his first test.
Six days of sanctioned anti-Japanese protests – which escalated Sunday into a nationwide day of rage that saw Japanese businesses and diplomatic missions attacked – have whipped up hatred and created a situation that leaves the Chinese leadership little room to compromise in a showdown over disputed islands in the East China Sea. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who is on the verge of calling an election that will see him challenged from the nationalist right, similarly has little room to negotiate.

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Beijing Unrest Over Island Dipspute

Protests Erupt in Beijing Over Disputed Islands 

  Associated Press

A demonstrator threw a traffic cone in front of the fence set up by the line of Chinese Paramilitary policemen during an anti-Japanese protests outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing Saturday.

BEIJING—Several thousand protesters pelted Japan's embassy in Beijing with eggs and plastic bottles, and crowds attacked a Japanese-owned department store in central China, as popular anger escalated over Tokyo's plans to purchase contested islands in the East China Sea.
Hundreds of police struggled to maintain order outside the embassy in central Beijing. Groups of protesters confronted police in full riot gear, berating them for protecting the building.
"Smash Japanese imperialism," the protesters chanted as they marched through the embassy district. Some sang the Chinese national anthem and held high portraits of Mao Zedong. Young protesters climbed into trees outside the embassy's gates where they burned a Japanese flag to the crowd's cheers.

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China's Warship In Disputed Water

China deploys two warships after Tokyo announces disputed island purchase

 

Uotsuri Island, one of disputed Senkaku islands in the East China Sea Photo: AP

 

Osamu Fujimura, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, yesterday confirmed that his country had agreed to purchase the islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, from a Japanese family it claims owns them.

The government will reportedly pay a total of 2.05 billion yen (£16.4 million) for the islands and the transfer of their ownership will be completed by the end of this month.

However as Mr Fujimura spoke, China’s state-controlled news agency Xinhua reported that two Chinese surveillance vessels had arrived in the region to “assert the country’s sovereignty”. Japanese media said the Japanese Coast Guard was monitoring the vessels. 

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South China Update

Island Grabbing in Asia

A Map of Conflicts in the South China Sea (Sam Pepple / Sample Cartography). Click to enlarge.
Last month, Japanese activists planted their country's flag on one of the Senkaku Islands (which the Chinese call the Diaoyu Islands), a chain claimed by China, Japan, and Taiwan. The move sparked protests in China and inspired headlines in the West, but the provocation was hardly surprising. The three bodies of water in East Asia -- the Sea of Japan (bounded by Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and Russia), the East China Sea (bordered by China and Japan's Ryukyu Islands), and the South China Sea (surrounded by Borneo, China, the Philippines, and Vietnam) -- are home to hundreds of disputed islands, atolls, and shoals. And in the last few years, the diplomatic and militaristic struggles to assert authority have become increasingly brazen.
On one level, patriotism is making things worse. Japan's tussle with China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, for example, is a touchstone for those in Japan who fear China's growing political and economic might. Likewise, South Korea's assertion of control over the Dokdo Islands (known as the Takeshima Islands in Japan) is viewed at home as a patriotic riposte to Japan's 40-year occupation of the peninsula.

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